Newmarket's asymptomatic coronavirus testing centre opens as Suffolk's director of public health urges people to make going to a lateral flow hub routine
Suffolk's public health director has urged people to make taking lateral flow tests part of their routine as the county opens its fifth centre today.
Stuart Keeble, the director for public health, last night said testing was likely to be part of frontline workers' lives for the next year to help crush the coronavirus in its tracks. And, he added, Suffolk still had a 'long way to go' until rates are as low as they were in the summer.
This morning a new rapid testing centre - which is not for people with symptoms - will open at Newmarket's Catholic church hall, with the opening coming after lateral flow hubs in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft, and Haverhill were launched.
And there are more to come, with centres set to be opened in the next six weeks across Suffolk as part of a ramping up of testing facilities with each hub capable of testing hundreds of people per day.
"We need to make it as easy as possible to get tested," said Mr Keeble. "We know that about one in three people with coronavirus don't have symptoms and don't know they have it," he said.
Tests can be booked online or by calling 0333 772 6144. At the appointment you will be swabbed in the nose and throat, and then your result will be texted to you shortly after.
And public health bosses have urged those frontline workers who cannot work from home - like supermarket staff, plumbers, factory workers, and those in the horseracing industry - to get tested twice a week to help stem the spread of the virus.
"I think the key here is that we need to turn this into a normal behaviour and to get people used to it," he said.
"What we're asking people to do is build that into their weekly routine and get tested twice a week, about three or four days apart. That's the optimum time period and with that we can try and pick up people who are developing Covid early."
The 'quick and easy tests' are good for finding people who are 'really infectious', he said, but were a snapshot in time so even with a negative test people should continue to follow social distancing guidelines.
In a sign of how difficult it will be to defeat the coronavirus, it looks likely both asymptomatic and symptomatic testing centres look likely to be around for months to come.
Mr Keeble said when the country comes out of lockdown not everyone would have had their coronavirus-busting jabs, and asymptomatic testing was another weapon in their arsenal to bring down infections.
"The fact is that we need to still be chasing the virus down," he said. "So anything we can do to pick up those people without symptoms but might have Covid, it just contributes towards reducing the transmission levels and protecting everybody."
Despite the UK looking likely to hit its mid-February target to give a first coronavirus-busting shot to the most vulnerable, the goal for the government to fully vaccinate every adult is Autumn.
"We're going to need to have testing in place at least until then. But it might be that we've got different variants that are developing," he said.
"Viruses by nature don't stick to a state, they need to evolve and develop to make themselves more effective and, in that case, is infecting us.
"I think there'll be a need for testing for the next nine to 12 months, and I think we'll still be offering testing and making sure we can try and pick up asymptomatic spread as the virus changes and evolves."
And despite falling rates of the virus, with the reproduction rate seeing the number of new infections falling by between three and six per cent every day, it is still far above the rate Suffolk saw in the summer when the number of infections slumped.
The latest seven day average for new confirmed cases was 146 new infections, but on June 22 it was just one new infection.
"I think the key thing is we still have a long way to go first before we even get back down to those levels, and we need to be focused on that as a first step."
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